It’s 9am on a May Sunday at the school gates. It’s a scene most parents and teachers know. Two members of staff and 10 students are trying to load suitcases and rucksacks into a coach, which runs the risk of being too small for the job, not least when the last person, and two big bags, finally turns up. The students are largely ignoring their parents, who talk nervously to each other about what they will do with the next five days of “freedom”.

The bus, the students and the staff will soon be on their way to HMS Raleigh, the Royal Navy’s training establishment in Plymouth. This group of students is a part of the school’s combined cadet force (CCF) naval contingent. However, this CCF section is unique. It belongs to Selly Oak Trust School, a school for children with special educational needs and disabilities, and it is the only special school in this country that has a CCF section made up entirely of cadets with SEND. And June marked the 10th anniversary of the creation of the Selly Oak Trust CCF, Royal Navy Section.

Of the 10 cadets on this particular trip, eight are boys, two are girls, and they range in age from 16 to 18. All the students have moderate learning difficulties and various other conditions - autism, ADHD. One of them is obsessed by the weather; being scared of noises, he constantly worries about thunder.

My own son has had his bags packed for three days - not the normal modus operandi of an 18-year-old boy. Of the staff, one of them - Tracey Wiltshire, a lieutenant - has been involved for all 10 years. The other, Brandon, is an apprentice teaching assistant and, remarkably, in two years, he has crossed over from being a student at the school to this role. We’ll come back to Brandon.

In the coming week, these cadets will do much of what all CCF cadets do at HMS Raleigh. They’ll get up early and get into their uniforms. They’ll march to breakfast and do some drill. They’ll do life-saving in the pool, and fire-fighting training. They’ll go out to sea and do an assault course and go rock-pooling on the beach.

Of course, such activities are interesting and rewarding for “normal” young people, but they are doubly and triply so for this band of brothers - and sisters. Most of them live contained and dependent lives at home, where, out of necessity, almost everything is done for them and they relate to a small number of adults. On a trip to HMS Raleigh, they not only do activities that they would not get elsewhere - some of them have never been to the seaside, a few have rarely left Birmingham - but they also learn to relate to each other, to work together, to organise themselves, to cope with the novel and the challenging, and they meet a wider range of adults. As Wiltshire says: “A lot of young people at this school have everything done for them. When they go away, they have to learn how to fold their clothes and hang them up, make their bed. For some it’s a real eye-opener and they are shattered by the time they get home.”

Real wonder

The annual trip to HMS Raleigh for these children is a wonder, a real wonder, and Wiltshire deserves a medal - and more: perhaps a Navy pension and a grace-and-favour cottage overlooking Plymouth Sound.

However, this trip is not the only wonder. In the past four years, she and another teacher - Neal Price, a sub-lieutenant - have run not only trips to the naval bases at Plymouth, Portsmouth and Liverpool, but also four expeditions to the battlefields of the First World War and the D-Day beaches.

“When they go to Liverpool, they go out to sea on HMS Charger,” says Wiltshire. “They’ve even gone up in helicopters; for some of them, that is the first time they have flown.

“In our first year in 2009, it was the 150th anniversary of the Cadet Forces and six of our cadets flew over Buckingham Palace with the RAF for the Queen’s birthday flypast. In the past 10 years, they have been offshore sailing six times, on sailing yachts along the Solent and once off the west coast of Scotland. That’s not exactly normal or obvious for kids with special educational needs in Birmingham.”

The scale of these trips - there are four residential trips each year - may be the most striking aspect of Selly Oak Trust School’s CCF, but it also plays a much more significant role in the curriculum than in almost any other school.

Students can join the CCF from Year 10 onwards and there are 40 cadets at the moment (more than a third of the school’s population in those years). The CCF also takes up a sizeable part of the timetable: in Years 10 and 11 there are two 90-minute sessions a week, in Year 12 one threehour session a week, and in Year 13 there are two three-hour sessions.

Although these sessions do have some class- and school-based elements, the main aim is to get out there and do things. Those things might be physical and aquatic: sailing, canoeing, kayaking, stand-up paddle boarding on the reservoirs of Birmingham. But there is also a strong sense of service. The cadets work with the Canal and River Trust, cleaning up the canals, and with the Wildlife Trust, helping to maintain its reserve overlooking Winson Green Prison. They sell poppies for the Royal British Legion and are responsible for recycling within the school. There’s plenty to be done.

All these activities have not only a social value for the community and a human value for the students: they also generate academic qualifications. As the cadets progress up the ranks within the CCF, they also gain a BTEC level 1 qualification: in Year 10 and 11, that’s in teamwork and personal development; in sixth form, it’s in public services. All of this fits in perfectly with the students’ Duke of Edinburgh Bronze and Silver awards.

And all of these activities have taken 10 years to build. In 2009, there was no CCF, only weekly sailing sessions. Then a link was formed with Lordswood School, a local comprehensive that had its own CCF. In the beginning, there were six cadets in the sixth form, the time allocation was two hours and two members of staff went off to Portsmouth to be trained. Now, there are three members of staff who are commissioned and four others designated as civilian instructors.

The collaboration with Lordswood lasted for four years until its CCF closed down. After a gap of two years, a CCF area instructor attached to the schools contingent found a new partner in King Edward’s School (KES), Birmingham, an independent school just two miles down the Bristol Road.

KES, with a large and long-standing CCF contingent and the resources to match, has been able to offer support in a variety of ways: its swimming pool has provided kayaking and survival training and the rifle range has offered a rare chance to practise shooting; its three First World War exhibitions have been much viewed; its staff provide expertise and support.

But the greatest moment of this partnership has been the annual inspection, which the two schools now share on the KES parade ground. Those who participate spend weeks training and preparing. When the day comes, there are few sights more likely to stir emotion for a Selly Oak parent, or even a Selly Oak teacher, than boys and girls from these two very different schools marching past an inspecting officer or engaging together in shared activities.

Every single person present, young and old, is enriched by such moments. The experiences generated by the CCF at Selly Oak Trust School give the students the chance to participate, to engage with others, to be independent and to feel a part of this wider world. The CCF, more than almost anything they do, builds the bridge that takes them towards an integrated and purposeful life.

Of course, the benefit does not only travel in one direction, as Duncan Raynor, the commanding officer of KES’ CCF, explains: “In the beginning, we thought we were doing Selly Oak Trust School a favour. In fact, it turned out that they were doing us one.

“They broaden the experience of our own boys by working together. Above all, the pride the Selly Oak cadets take in being part of the CCF and part of the Navy has given many KES cadets a nudge to realise the value of the cadet experience; it can be only too easy for our boys to take that for granted. It means a great deal to all of us here to work with the Selly Oak section of our contingent.”

Naval gazing

I said I’d return to Brandon, and we’ll end with him. Wiltshire can tell the tale.

“Brandon started at Selly Oak in Year 12, four years ago,” she says. “He was completely disengaged and his mum couldn’t get him out of bed. He was against everything and his face was full of piercings.

“He chose the CCF and for the first two months he wasn’t bothered, and then he joined in. After the first year, he was very passionate and was coming into school more. The piercings started to disappear.

“After completing two years of CCF service, he was awarded a BTEC level 2 in teamwork and personal development, but he didn’t want to leave school because of cadets.

“Brandon went off to college to do a BTEC level 2 in public services, but asked if he could come back to school on his days off to volunteer with the CCF. He also wanted to join the Royal Navy and, after applying, passed through the entire selection process; if he hadn’t written “autistic” on his application, he would have got in.

“So, he came in and helped out. We gave him a non-commissioned officer role so he was wearing uniform. He started off as a petty officer and now he is a chief petty officer. He did the year volunteering and then he asked if he could get a job here. So, now he is an apprentice teaching assistant. He is getting paid for working full-time.

“He is amazing, a real support to me, but also a real support and asset to the whole section: a true inspiration to all.”

John Claughton is a former chief master of King Edward’s School, Birmingham, and a current governor of Selly Oak Trust School

This article originally appeared in the 5 July 2019 issue under the headline “SEND in the naval contingent”